Videre
by trufflemores
Summary: 3.19. There's always one question attached to Barry's presence in Cisco's life: real or fake?


Have you ever had a dream so real that once you woke up you looked for the other person, like they were the key, the missing component that unlocked your Other Life, your Imagined Life, your Can't-Happen Life?

Cisco has. And it starts when he opens his eyes.

He stares at his bedroom wall and listens for some perturbance, some indication that his wakefulness is needed, but minutes pass and he can't find it. The apartment is still and quiet. No matter what he does, it always is. Sometimes he thinks the ice took more than his hands, numbed all of his senses, made him a little more dead to the world. Without his Vibes, it feels that way. Cold creeps over him, inspiring him to move.

Metallic fingers curl around the sheets. He doesn't care for them – they're mechanically exquisite, but they are not human, and it will always be that simple for him – but they get him places he needs to go. Wandering down the little hall between the kitchen and bedroom, he checks the thermostat: 62 degrees Fahrenheit. Any other night, he might sleep through the flux and flow of a temperamental heater, but now that he's up, he clicks the dial up to a balmier 72. Proceeding, he steps into the kitchen and presses his palms against the table, breathing slowly, deeply, more asleep than awake.

And then an apparition manifests and asks in a gravel-tired tone he knows: "Couldn't sleep?"

"No," he says simply, unquestioningly, because the dreams always begin like this. "It's too cold."

Barry wanders over. His suit is older than Cisco expects – retro, '17, ballpark 52nd edition of a never-ending series of suits – but it's still The Flash's suit. His subconscious has dredged up stranger things. (Every so often it puts _him_ in the suit, and though Cisco can appreciate the strangely comforting armor, he feels uneasy, uncertain wearing it, like something terrible had to precede his acquisition.)

Barry stops three feet away, regarding him with burning red eyes barely visible in the dark, like dying embers in a fire. Without thinking, Cisco reaches for him, just to see if he's as warm as he looks, and his metal fingers halt above Barry's arm in a belated flinch. Barry's gaze slides down, fixing on Cisco's hand, holding himself very, very still. There's no disgust in his expression, nor anger – anger that Cisco half-expects from the lion who took over his best friend, starting-six-years-ago.

Seven, now. Time flies. He'd teleport if it was faster, anything to make it faster, make it hurt less, put enough _time_ between him and that night to make it stop bleeding, but even that seems too slow, like he could leapfrog his entire life and still find himself in the same place at the end.

Time heals all wounds, but Cisco can't bring himself to walk away from the pain, to cheat the system, to be a _god_.

Then, carefully, with only a flickering glance up and then down, Barry reaches out and presses Cisco's hand to his arm. The metal fingers curl around his forearm, and Cisco knows they're cold, at times breathtakingly, borderline excruciatingly cold, but Barry doesn't flinch. Instead, with another permission-seeking glance, he slides his hand from Cisco's unfeeling one to his very-much-feeling wrist, the touch electrifying, unexpectedly acute, like every color revealed in the right light.

But even Barry's hand is cold, and it occurs to Cisco that cold is not his enemy alone, that cold is a mutual weakness.

They don't negotiate or speak at all – Cisco releases Barry, but Barry follows Cisco back to Cisco's room. Cisco doesn't even need to move the covers – they're already pulled back – so he slides back onto his side of the bed. Rain patters on the roof, preceding a low growl of thunder, and Cisco thinks about watching the storm roll in, but then Barry shrugs out of the suit and settles beside him, first with his weight barely against the bed, and then firmly as he lies down on his side, and all thoughts of getting up cease.

Barry pulls the covers up over them, shielding them from the rest of the world, intensifying their proximity. Closing his eyes, Cisco dares to dream it's real, that it's real as with heartbreaking hesitation Barry drapes an arm around his waist. Not every dream sweeps him off his feet; some are cold, distant, nothing-is-forgiven bystanders that serve only to remind him of the burned bridges between them.

But this Barry bleeds fire and still does not set them ablaze. He shivers and Cisco scoots closer to him, taking what he can have, settling into the pocket of warmth surrounding him. They share body heat, even though Cisco's cold fingers come between them. He aches to tuck them against Barry's side and knows that this is a dream because Barry reads his mind, taking his right hand and placing it on his hip. Graciously accepting the gift freely given, Cisco slides his palm midway up his side, soaking in the warmth. Though his metallic hands lack nerve endings and feel no pain, it eases the joints and reduces the discomfort in his wrists to keep them warm.

He mirrors the gesture lower on Barry's hip with his left hand, closing his eyes in relief because even if it's fake it's still overwhelmingly good. It's even better when Barry cages him in, wrapping both arms around Cisco's back and hugging him not closely but tightly, a true-blue bear-hug. He wants to be crushed against Barry's chest, held so close there isn't a chance he can be pried away, but he can't bring himself to ask. There's a lump in his throat at the profound, inescapable reminder that he will have to let this go once he wakes up.

Savoring the opportunity, he shifts close enough to Barry that Barry's chin rests on his head. This close, he can feel every breath, almost-every-heartbeat, the steady rhythms of a still-breathing machine deep and soothing. His eyelids flutter, but something nags at him, the realism, the dimensionality of the thing. He can clearly smell the petrichor on Barry's skin, thunder-and-lightning, a trait he's never noticed or simply never cared to notice in dreams. He wants to sleep if only to dream with Barry, and can't escape the irony of wanting to leave one world to savor another.

That's what Barry does – what Barry has had to do, evidently, to save his life and Cisco's life and his perceived-and-perfect world – but Cisco scarcely exercises the same authority. He knows how to destroy the universe; he does not know how to communicate with it. Like aliens, they stand on opposite sides of the room, watching each other closely – the bulk of the universe resisting his attempts to dominate it, the resilience of Cisco's commitment refuting the universe's efforts to thwart him – but never advancing more than halfway. Never close enough to touch, like two nuclei held apart, an illusion of intimacy. It's all perception of a micro universe on a macro scale.

Barry rubs his back and Cisco presses his ear against his shoulder and listens to the world froth into shore, recede over skipping stones, sweeping up and drumming down. Somewhere just outside the apartment's glass windows, it's fifty-four-degrees-and-falling, but in their huddle under the covers, it's warm, almost tropical. Cisco thinks about all the cold nights here, the loneliness, the residual pain that will not go away in the hands which aren't his hands anymore but spirited imitations, and he knows why the Greeks called the human form perfect, the highest aspiration. Imitating it is impossible; one must alter, affect, evolve, or perish.

The rain comes down and Cisco listens to it, breathing in and out slowly like a single wrong movement will drive Barry away. But it doesn't matter how careful he is. Soon enough, Barry will disappear, and Cisco will have nothing to show for it but an ache in his gut and a longing for the next spell-binding encounter, somewhere-down-the-line.

Closing his eyes, he drifts off in Barry's arms, his own metallic hands holding on.

When he awakes – when sunshine drizzles politely into view through the window, come-morning – he's surprised at how warm he is, how decidedly comfortable the sheets feel with the memory of another person's presence imprinted on them. He keeps his eyes closed, savoring the vestiges of the dream, but then the surface underneath him moves and he can't help but blink in surprise, looking down at Barry, sleeping soundly.

Awe and agony intermingle in Cisco's mind as he realizes that _this is not a dream._

Stretching slowly, Barry opens golden eyes to slits. "Hey," he rumbles.

Cisco can't speak, resting his cheek on Barry's shoulder and fighting sudden, mutinous tears because oh God this is _real_. "What's wrong?" Barry asks, unaware of the struggle, the ecstasy of reality crushed by the awareness that no matter how immediate the present is soon enough Barry will leave-and-never-come-back. "Cisco?" He starts to rise and Cisco holds onto him, metallic hands pressed against skin he can't feel, and Barry stills, sinking back against the sheets and waiting it out.

At last, Cisco says slowly, "I'm sorry."

Barry brings up a hand to cradle the back of Cisco's head. "Don't be."

"I want you to stay," Cisco whispers, a tear dripping down onto Barry's skin.

Barry scratches thoughtfully at the base of Cisco's neck, saying nothing. "I can't," he says, and Cisco closes his eyes because he knew, but it doesn't hurt less to hear. "But I'm not gonna leave you alone," he says. "I promise."

Cisco holds onto him, almost childishly committed, I-don't-want-anyone-but- _you_ , and still he lets him go when Barry rises, because he has to, because it's how the dream should go. Every time he disappears first, cut-off, taken-away, and that other life remains heartbreakingly out-of-reach, but this time he lets it play out, and he lets Barry walk away.

. o .

Five days pass before he has the dream again.

This time it's not the maroon-suited speedster that shows up at his apartment door, but the familiar fire-engine red one that refuses-to-run and refuses-to-hide, facing danger head-on, make-me-bleed-and-I'll-try-again. There's a height difference of two inches between the two Barrys that he knows and still doesn't fully anticipate it, the result of a mid-twenties growth spurt for a guy who already had a fair amount on him. But Cisco doesn't chastise nor complain, doesn't introduce or explain, just lets the Future Flash wander into his home for the first time in nearly seven years.

It's like letting a wolf into his den, prowling cautiously towards the corners, evaluating, sizing up. He remembers the heart-pounding anticipation of going down to the basement level of STAR Labs and feeling Barry's presence somewhere, somewhere, decidedly not happy to see him. There's no animosity now, no leading edge of a storm about to break. It's calm and quiet, civil and unremarkable, and Cisco dares to believe it can last.

Barry turns to look at him and the weight of seven years lingers between them. Like many an argument he has had with the universe, they stand on opposite sides of the room, watching each other, assessing their next moves. Cisco waits for Barry to lash out, to disappear, for the happy little bubble of maybe to break, but nothing happens. Slowly, he takes a step forward. When Barry doesn't move, he takes another, and Barry watches unblinking as he crosses the floor.

He leaves space between them, leaves opportunity between them, and Barry could run, could stand still, but Barry looks at him with human, hazel-green eyes, and then he reaches out and clasps Cisco's shoulder.

And Cisco can feel his emotions, the uncertainty and aching longing, to be something approximating Before, something inevitably After. He can see it in Barry's eyes, the question and challenge. _Let's try_ , it says, and he draws Cisco in and Cisco steps forward, letting himself be consumed, held tightly to Barry's chest. _Let's try._

For the first time in a long time, when he falls asleep in Barry's arms, this-Barry, _his_ -Barry, he knows it isn't a dream.


End file.
